D+

by Jason AnkenyMinimalist indie-popsters D+ were led by singer/guitarist Bret Lunsford, previously a member of the enormously influential Olympia, Washington-based love-rock trio Beat Happening. While still a member of Beat Happening, Lunsford formed his own label, Knw-Yr-Own, to the local music scene in his nearby hometown of Anacortes; when the band was mothballed after 1992's You Turn Me On, he returned to Anacortes to run a combination retail outlet/cafe called the Business, setting up Knw-Yr-Own's recording studio in the back of the building. Circa 1995 Lunsford befriended drummer Phil Elvrum, who came to work at the Company and helped breathe new life into Knw-Yr-Own, issuing a series of tapes on the label; Elvrum soon joined Lunsford in D+, and with the addition of bassist/singer Karl Blau the group's line-up was complete. Their self-titled debut LP appeared in 1997, a joint release between Knw-Yr-Own and K Records, the label founded by Lunsford's onetime Beat Happening mate Calvin Johnson; the second D+ album, Dandelion Seeds, followed a year later. Elvrum additionally performed solo under the name the Microphones, while Blau helmed Captain Fathom.